


Thin Ice

by FoundlingMother



Series: Thaw [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Blood, Don’t copy to another site, Fantastic Racism, Imprisonment, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki and Thor Are Not Related, M/M, Poisoning, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21534970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoundlingMother/pseuds/FoundlingMother
Summary: The princes of Asgard and Jotunheim are married to ensure peace lasts between the once warring realms, though everyone knows the terms of their peace to be unequal. To no one's great shock, Loki and Thor share an unpleasant wedding night."'You seem tense. Should a bride not be happy on her wedding night?'"'Forgive me, Your Highness,” Loki spits, squinting, pulse quickening. “I cannot feign excitement when I am to be raped by a mindless, genocidal sot.'"
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Series: Thaw [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552024
Comments: 8
Kudos: 152
Collections: Best Thorkis





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both chapters were originally written and posted as part of my [Whumptober 2018 Ficlets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16023731?view_full_work=true). They were [Day 5: Poisoned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16023731/chapters/37792595) and [Day 25: Restraints](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16023731/chapters/40086062). I have decided to separate some of the ficlets into their own, independent stories, either because I am proud of them, or because I intend to one day expand the universe they exist within.

The servants strip Loki of the Æsir finery they’d forced him into, roughly unbraid Loki’s hair, and massage scented oils into his skin, even daring to touch his posterior and the sensitive flesh of his inner thighs, unsolicited.

Then they leave.

The smell of the oils—at once sharp and sweet—nauseates Loki.

He refuses to remain bare, awaiting the Prince of Asgard like an expensive whore. Refuses to accept yet another afront to his status.

_Bend without breaking._

Loki dons Prince Thor’s robe, adjusting the too-long sleeves caught on the Allfather’s seiðr-suppressing handcuffs.

Settled in the center of the bed, he fantasizes that the ocean of blankets surrounding him might prove enough of a buffer to deter the inevitable. Thor appeared inebriated during their wedding feast. Perhaps the rolling hills of the comforter would overwhelm the drunkard.

_Childish imaginings._

Alcohol might calm Loki’s nerves. He does not touch the wine laid out for the couple on the bureau beside the bed, one goblet settled within his reach. Loki’s refused to eat or drink anything since coming to Asgard, save for the ice he conjures. Precautionary measure. It's not like hunger's a new experience.

Loki clutches an arm around his stomach, pursing his lips and blinking away the stinging of his eyes.

He waits.

Thor enters the bedroom sometime later, saturated in the stench of ale. He treads, unstable, to the foot of the bed, along the left side.

“You’re wearing my robe,” Thor slurs. Disapproving? Angered? Indifferent? Loki cannot tell.

He meets Thor’s eyes. Steady.

“I was not provided one.”

“You were not meant to have one.”

Loki scowls. “I shouldn’t think you’d protest. When I arrived via the Bifrost, you appeared to find my nudity distasteful.” He ignores the tingling flush—violet-hued humiliation—growing over his face.

_Nudity demanded by the Allfather. A symbol of Loki's—Jotunheim's—subjugation._

Thor stumbles forward.

Loki’s heart leaps, hammering in his throat. He fists the comforter, knuckles pale blue with tension.

Thor does not strike Loki. He does not attempt to mount him. He catches himself, one hand pressed to the surface of the bedside bureau. He eyes the goblets—the full one placed nearer to Loki and the empty one for Thor—and wraps his other hand around the neck of the wine bottle, tossing the drink back.

Gulping. Carmine rivers escaping past his lips, winding through his trimmed beard.

A grotesque display.

Loki turns away, studying the pattern of the bedspread.

Thor’s lips pop. He gasps. Sighs. “You seem tense. Should a bride not be happy on her wedding night?”

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” Loki spits, squinting, pulse quickening. “I cannot feign excitement when I am to be raped by a mindless, genocidal sot.”

Thor shatters the empty bottle against the wall above Loki. Glass rains on the pillows. In Loki’s hair.

“Speak to me thusly again, and I will have you kept in the stables,” he threatens. “I am the one forced to commit an act of bestiality, runt.”

Loki remains paralyzed, eyes closing tight.

He hears the scrape of metal against polished wood. Hears Thor swallow.

Hears him gag. Hears the clatter of a goblet—Loki’s half-full wine goblet—hitting the ground.

_Bang!_

Loki jolts, vision darting toward the noise.

Thor lies collapsed. Writhes. Wretches, clutching his throat. There's a furious gash across his forehead where he must have struck the bureau in falling.

Blood floods his mouth, dribbling down his chin, staining the stone floors with each choked cough.

_Poison._

Loki flies off the bed, hovering over Thor, dizzy, heart racing.

“Guards,” he murmurs. “Guards! Guards!” he cries with greater conviction.

Thor’s eyes bulge. Terrified.

Loki drops to his knees. He pries Thor’s hand from his throat and replaces it with a shaking one of his own.

Wearing the seiðr-suppressing cuffs, Loki cannot repair all the damage, but the Allfather did not deny him access to minor healing and tissue strengthening spells, nor a numbing spell. Useful to prevent and treat injury related to rough couplings.

His seiðr pulses through Thor, following the poison’s descent, numbing his mutilated esophagus and reversing the damage as much as possible. It weaves along the lining of Thor’s stomach, prepared to defend from the poison’s corrosive effect.

Thor manages a couple of shallow breaths. Whimpers. His fingers squeeze Loki’s wrist.

Loki glances at the goblet meant for him. The inside must have been coated with the poison, for the wine itself did not harm Thor.

Utilizing his grasp on Loki’s wrist, Thor tugs himself onto his other side, head dropping onto Loki’s lap. He buries his face against Loki’s leg, one bloodshot, watery blue eye gazing up at Loki, shining with genuine gratitude.

Why did he not let Thor die?

“Guards!” Loki yells. Armored boots echo beyond Thor’s chambers.

Thor exhales through his nose—a sharp, panicked thing Loki feels through the fabric of Thor’s robe.

Hesitant, he brushes Thor’s hair at the temple with his free hand. Again, Thor squeezes the one trapped in his grip.

Three Einherjar burst into the room. The man in front blinks, shocked. He shouts for others. In moments, what seems to be an entire unit of Einherjar swarm Thor’s suite.

Loki notices their movements too late. Two Einherjar seize him, wrenching him away from Thor.

“He tried to assassinate Prince Thor. Take him to the prisons.”

Cold dread coils in Loki’s belly. They lock chains to the Allfather's handcuffs. “No! I—”

They silence him. Muzzle him. 

Loki thrashes. The Einherjar drag him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reference to Loki arriving in Asgard naked was inspired by [Crossing the Border](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476454) by [fairychangeling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairychangeling/pseuds/fairychangeling). Good fic. Much softer than this. Read it.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki drifts awake to a fresh wave of pain radiating across his shoulders. Fatigue and the sticky residue of sleep and unshed tears blur his vision. He blinks hard.

He remains on the outskirts of consciousness, slowly registering that a restless movement exacerbated the strain on the joints, waking him.

Golden chains cross above his body, locked on one end to the seiðr-suppressing handcuffs he wears and on the other to hooks embedded in the ceiling. The length of the chains does not permit Loki to lie with his arms at his sides. They remain suspended, always tense.

For hours Loki stood in the center of his cell.

The Einherjar removed his muzzle shortly after stringing him up.

Loki did not cry out. He did not plead his innocence. His words, he knew, would fall upon deaf ears.

He just stood, refusing to succumb to exhaustion. Prickling sensations stung throughout his limbs. After, they grew numb.

Eventually, exhaustion won. Loki positioned himself on the cot with all the grace he could, shoulders aching in earnest, and attempted to rest.

Footsteps shuffle down the corridor beyond the shimmering barrier. Sluggishly, Loki’s heart begins to thunder against his ribcage. He further emerges from his semi-conscious state, nerves alight with panic.

The Einherjar dragged Loki into the deepest recess of Asgard’s prison and abandoned him. He heard no sounds of life—no sounds—for ages.

He rocks his hips, twisting until his feet touch the cold surface of the ground. Thor’s robe rides up, brushing along his thigh.

Loki peers toward the approaching figure.

Thor emerges from the gloom. Dark circles hang beneath his eyes. Spots of crusted blood dot his raw, red lips. He levels a cool expression at Loki.

Loki jolts upward, shoulders screaming. The chains rattle.

“I didn’t—I didn’t—”

_Blood flooding Thor’s mouth. Dribbling down his chin. Poison eating the flesh of Thor’s throat and esophagus on a slow descent to his stomach. Poison meant for Loki._

He shudders.

Thor reaches out. The barrier drops, and he enters the cell, stalking closer.

Loki retreats, tripping into the far wall. His arms hang, limply outstretched before him, a pathetic shield.

“Please. It wasn’t me. I didn’t—” He chokes on a sob.

Thor steps into Loki’s space. A large hand cups the back of Loki’s head, forcing him to meet Thor’s calculating stare. Loki focuses his watery gaze on Thor’s drawn eyebrows, afraid to find emotion in his eyes.

_His eyes shining with genuine gratitude. His head cradled in Loki’s lap._

“I swear,” Loki breathes. “Please.”

Loki catches movement at the periphery of his vision. Thor’s free hand wraps around his own neck, massaging the skin of his jugular.

Thor nods, once.

His hand at the back of Loki’s head shifts. The rough pad of his thumb swipes through tear tracks on Loki’s cheeks, catching on the ridges of Loki’s ancestral markings.

Loki’s pulse stutters. He sucks in a breath.

“Believe you.” Thor’s voice grates, rough and crackling.

The words bathe Loki in relief. He giggles, overwhelmed.

Thor’s hand lifts off Loki. He grips the chains, unlocking them from the cuffs. Loki’s arms fall to his sides. The chains sway.

“Thor—”

Thor watches Loki, waiting.

Loki says nothing more.

Silent acknowledgment passes between them.

Thor tugs Loki near. He steers him, fingers digging into Loki’s waist, out of the cell, through the floors of the prison.

Loki’s fingers twitch, sensation returning. Shakely, he draws Thor’s robe tighter around his torso.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someday I intended to expand on this universe in a fic I've titled Thaw, which shares its name with the series this belongs to. Consider this fic a prologue. As the title implies, Thaw will include softer moments.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://foundlingmother.tumblr.com/) | [Dreamwidth](https://foundlingmother.dreamwidth.org/)


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